Let's Make It A Good Year
by ClassicJest
Summary: Ignatz moves the the town of Garreg Mach and discovers that the residents are anything but normal. Modern AU


Ignatz looked at his faint reflection in the car window. It was either that or admire the night sky some more like he had been doing for the past hour. The stars may be pretty, but they sure got old fast.

The "Welcome to Garreg Mach" sign slowly passing by snapped him out of his trance.

"Finally, we're here." His mother muttered, moreso to his father than him.

It didn't quite seem as if the 2 days of driving were quite worth it, seeing as the town was so small and bland looking. Ignatz didn't spend very much time outside, so it wouldn't be a big loss, but he would certainly be missing the wide open rooms and gorgeous windows of his old house.

His father parked the car in the new driveway. Ignatz stepped out and took a moment to take it all in. It was a very short moment, seeing as the house they were moving into seemed just about as bland and beige as every other house in the neighborhood. He quickly got his suitcases out of the newly-popped trunk, and waited for one of his parents to unlock the door.

"Give me a hand with these, would ya?" his father called out, arms full of miscellaneous bags and suitcases.

Ignatz quickly dropped his suitcases at the door and gave his father a hand.

When their car was finally emptied out, contents at the door, his mother unlocked the house.

Ignatz stepped in, carrying his suitcases. Immediately his nose was assaulted by the strong scent of cleaning sprays. Not the worst thing to smell, he supposed.

"Your room's the first one on the right." said his mother.

Ignatz nodded, turned to his right and made his way up the ugly shag carpet covered stairs.

He opened the door to his new room. It was a small place, half the size of his last room. Luckily their landlord had the courtesy to leave basic furnishings in, such as the dark walnut wood dresser and the twin-sized mattress on the floor.

Ignoring that, he went to check out the lace-curtain covered window to his right. He pulled back the curtains to discover a view of… his neighbor's house. Quite the downgrade from the old house where the windows gave him a view of the densely packed forest in his yard.

He decided to move his clothes from his suitcase to his dresser. When that was done, all that he really had left to unpack were his blankets. Seeing as it was getting quite late, he decided he could just use them. "I'm going to sleep!" he yelled out the doorway.

"Okay!" his mother - or father, he was getting tired and it was hard to tell - yelled back.

* * *

.

.

.

Ignatz waited outside his house for his bus to come. The spring breeze was quite chilly, especially compared to what he was used to back where he used to live. He'd chosen to wear a black sweater and khakis, just to keep it pretty simple. He didn't want to attract much more attention than he had to, but he didn't think it would matter much anyways. This was high school, there were bound to be tons of kids, and he was sure they must all be too focused on themselves to really care about him.

Finally, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed what he theorized to be his bus coming down the road. That theory was confirmed when the bus stopped in front of him.

The door opened, horribly squeaky like any good bus should be.

"You Ignatz?" asked the bus driver.

"Yes, that would be me." He stepped onto the bus.

Every kid on the bus was either wearing red, blue or yellow for whatever reason. Ignatz prayed it was a coincidence, but he highly doubted that seeing as everyone was staring at him. He began walking down the aisle, not surprised to find that his legs were shaking.

A brown-haired kid at the back of the bus patted the spot beside himself. "Wanna sit with me?"

Ignatz could've sworn he'd heard some kids gasp. "Sure." He sat down with the other boy and set his bag by his legs.

The boy held out his hand. "I'm Claude. It's nice to meet ya."

Ignatz accepted the handshake. "I'm Ignatz. It's very nice to meet you too!"

"So, Ignatz, you're attending Garreg Mach Academy, right?"

Ignatz nodded. The title of _academy_ made it sound really fancy, though he doubted it met that expectation seeing as Claude was literally wearing jean shorts.

The bus stopped again. A girl with bright pink hair tied up into a ponytail got on. She was one of the ones wearing yellow, in the form of a striped yellow and white shirt covered slightly by short overalls. She was even wearing gold and yellow scrunchies on her wrists.

She walked over to where he and Claude were sitting. "Uhm… who's this?"

"Oh! Sorry, Hilda. This is Ignatz, a new kid. Ignatz, this is my friend Hilda."

Hilda smiled. "It's very nice to meet you Ignatz!" she looked at Claude again, "I'm going to go sit with Marianne. Hopefully she'll actually want appreciate my company, unlike _some people! Hmp!_" she raised her head as if she was offended, then seconds later dropped the act and grinned as she turned around and walked to a blue-haired girl Ignatz assumed was Marianne.

Claude grinned and shook his head. "She really is something."

Ignatz almost felt bad to cut the moment short. "So Claude, I have no idea what classes I'm supposed to be going to. Should I just ask at the office? Am I already supposed to know?"

"Oh, Ignatz." Claude smiled fondly. "Just follow me when you get there and you'll be fine."

Uhm, what? Ignatz considered asking more, but he felt like it wouldn't help much to do so. Luckily, he didn't have to wait much longer to find out what Claude was talking about, because the bus parked in front of Garreg Mach Academy not long after the exchange.

"Are we late or early? I don't see any other buses."

"There are no other buses."

Ignatz knew that it was likely a small town, but the idea of there only being one bus for **the entire school **was still quite the shock.

Almost too much of a shock, and Claude did have a mischievous grin on his face.

Ignatz tried to cover a worried look on his face. "You aren't messing with me, are you?"

"If I wanted to mess with you, I would've chosen a better lie."

Ignatz was convinced enough, so he got up and started walking off the bus, Claude right behind him. When they got off, they switched places, Ignatz instead following Claude.

He took a moment to admire the hallways as they entered the Academy. The ceiling was high and arched like that of a church's. The floor was a generic white tile, matching the boring eggshell white of the walls. There were many bulletin boards on the walls, though he could not figure out what was written on the many papers pinned to them as he and Claude were walking far too quickly for him to be able to read them.

Ignatz took back his last thought as he slammed into Claude's back, causing them both to stumble forward a little.

"I'm so sorry!"

Claude turned and waved him off. "It's no problem, I'm used to it. Anyways, we're here."

Ignatz questioned why someone would be used to that, but decided to file that away with all of his other unanswered questions about Claude.

Claude opened the door in front of them labeled 'Byleth Eisner' and stepped inside, motioning for him to follow.

Ignatz froze when he noticed all of the students that were sitting at their tables, staring at him. All of them, including Claude, were the ones on the bus wearing yellow.

Claude faced the class, "This is Ignatz, he's new in town." he moved his arms in front of Ignatz as if he was a girl showing off an item on The Price Is Right.

After a chorus of "hi"s and "hello"s, Claude led him between the two rows of tables, each with two students sitting in them, to the back of the room.

He looked contemplative for a moment, then snapped his fingers. "Raphael! Mind if Ignatz here sits with you?"

"Not at all!" the boy who said that, likely Raphael, waved from near the front of the class. Ignatz questioned whether it was because the boy had bad eyesight or if it was because of poor seating arrangement that someone so big and tall would be sitting at the front.

"Well, Ignatz, if you ever need any help, then let me now," Claude took off his yellow hoodie to reveal an equally yellow top that read 'I made out with the GEICO lizard and all I got was this dumb shirt'. "But for now, I must say goodbye." he sat down at the back next to Hilda.

"Thanks for your help." Ignatz walked to the front and sat down next to Raphael. Up close it was obvious that he was _very_ muscular, his tight gold flannel shirt not helping to keep it subtle. Ignatz felt a small blush on his face, his thoughts jumbling to where he could not think of a better adjective than '_very_'.

"Heya, Ignatz. I guess ya already heard, but I'm Raphael." Raphael offered a hand that Ignatz shook.

"Nice to meet you." Ignatz smiled.

The door opened. In walked a blue-haired boy wearing a half skirt over a pair of black pants and combat boots. He was wearing an open coat, but he had holes cut in the top of the sleeves for his arms to come out of. Ignatz would've thought that this was some weird way to keep his arms cool and his body warm, but the boy still had sleeves on. The gloves he was wearing despite being inside and the literal dagger on his waist would normally be questionable, but based on the… everything else going on, Ignatz decided not to bother looking for an answer.

The boy marched right up to the blackboard and started writing.

'Ways you could die:

1\. Stabbed in the neck

2\. Stabbed in the head

3\. Stabbed in the chest

4\. Etc.'

Ignatz felt as if being stabbed was an extremely unlikely cause of death, and that old age and heart attacks should have been on the list, but he was not surprised that this was the way things were going down if the boy's appearance had any relevance.

The boy turned around. "So, based on this information, what should you be careful not to do?" he looked around the class, then seemed to notice Ignatz and looked him straight in the eyes. "Are you a visitor, boy?"

"Uhm, ah, um… I thought I was supposed to be in this class?"'

The boy looked to the back of the room. "Claude."

Ignatz heard a laugh.

"You know me too well, teach! Ignatz here- that's his name - is new, and I figured he'd be Golden Deer material, so I brought him here."

Ignatz pinched himself, and was surprised to find he was not dreaming, because a situation so confusing did not happen on the daily. He could have sworn for sure that the boy at the front was no older than 18, but apparently, he was the teacher.

"I'm sorry about the confusion, uh, Mr. Eisner, is it?" Ignatz hoped that the nameplate on the front of the door was not going to mislead him, but the few laughs he heard made him want to fall through the floor and never be seen again.

"I suppose, but you can just call me Byleth." Byleth turned back to the blackboard and began writing, ignoring the list he had written moments before. "Had I known there would be a new student today, I would have chosen a different lesson, but Seteth does not like to inform me of these things."

He stepped away from the blackboard to reveal what he had written;

'What we know about Garreg Mach Academy:'

"This is class, so you guys are doing the work. I'm looking for hands, because the staff say I have to." he folded his arms and kept a completely neutral expression. "Ah, yes, Lysithea?"

"Well," began a girl who looked like she should still have been in middle school, "firstly, there are the three house groups, the Golden Deer, the Black Eagles, and the Blue Lions."

Byleth wrote down '1. Three houses'.

Ignatz raised a finger. "So kind of like Harry Potter, right?"

"I suppose…" Lysithea rested her chin in her hand.

Another girl laughed. "We're lucky Annette isn't here, or she wouldn't stop talking 'til she'd roped you into watching the whole series with you!"

Most of the class shared a laugh while Ignatz sat there awkwardly.

When the laughing was done, Byleth cleared his throat loudly until all eyes were on him. "I don't feel like standing here. Let's just walk around the school and show him," he gestured to Ignatz, "Instead of spending an hour explaining each little thing."

Ignatz felt like the protagonist of a 12 year old's shoddily written One Direction Wattpad fanfiction.


End file.
